Fahrvergnügen
I’ve always had a thing for long drives alone. My first car took CDs, and it seemed like extremely advanced technology. My stepbrother had a four-CD changer in his car. It felt like robots were inside. I don’t know why, but Erasure and Rick Astley were two of the first CDs I ever owned. That might be the most vulnerable thing I’ve ever written.
Fahrvergnügen is a made-up German compound word that loosely translates to "driving pleasure" or "driving enjoyment". I remember the commercials. The open roads are always out there. Clouds follow you, morning to night. Running down the gas tank to the last moment. Stopping because, why not?
Driving and eating are divine. Chex Mix is a worthy companion, but you have to decide whether to grab and toss in or to shovel the bag into your mouth. These decisions can make or break a trip.
Car rides with other people aren’t always “driving pleasure”. Small talk is a hangnail in mittens in ten-degree weather to me. It can be fun, but there’s still something about traversing the roadways alone. It’s a form of extreme freedom, and often, an escape from the pettiness of our world.
I always had this fantasy of meeting a girl, car-to-car, while driving. Seeing if you could catch someone singing or picking their nose was part of the game of the road. Not letting someone pass was like the white stick in Fun Dip; surprisingly pleasurable.
Smoking disgusts me. I just don’t get it. But once in a while, when I see someone pounding down a freeway at eighty, smoking a heater, and bobbing their head to the music, I almost get it. I’d rather do the dare of an ice cream cone on a hot day behind the wheel. It’s basically an hourglass. Tick tock. Drip drop.
Traffic is not fahrvergnügen. It’s like trying to get around an oblivious family of five on 8th Avenue in New York City who have decided that the only way to walk is in a straight line. A human blockade. Stop and go. Drop and roll. Even the best songs don’t sound good in bumper-to-bumper traffic. All your worst memories get in the car.
I used to drive my son to sleep when he was little. Half the time it worked. Half the time I went to McDonald’s. When you have kids, you realize driving is a mind game. “Hey guys, it’s 26 miles to the next exit, so if you have to pee now is the time.” “We’re good,” in unison. The second you pass the exit, you know what happens. I peed by the side of my dad’s car a lot as a kid.
Podcasts and audiobooks make driving a sheer pleasure. Before audiobooks came out, I remember listening to Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami on so many CDs, traveling back and forth between DUMBO and Clinton, New Jersey for my job as Curator of The Hunterdon Art Museum. Play the sweet music of fiction.
Mountain Dew and Doritos are now trail mix and unsweetened iced tea, but the road is still the same.
© Jonathan Greene, August 8, 2026
